The Legacy of Jack Darby
by Prander
Summary: It's been thirty years and Jack Darby fights the Decepticon war alone as he races against time, madness, new terrors...and himself. Thanks for the feedback and reviews and please check out my profile or forum for a personal thank you. :)
1. Chapter 1

Jack Darby stumbled suddenly as he ran. A bright lance of pain lanced down through his left arm.

"Damnit, not now. Not _now_." He gasped, clutching his shoulder and skidding to a halt.

Around him the ground shook. The air clapped with thunder and heat and the dark clouds above were lit with flashes of flame.

So intense was the battle far behind him, that arcs of static lighting rippled out across the sky, rolling and twisting in the dry air. Everything felt super-charged and heated and Jack knew the heat was no illusion.

His world burned.

His chest aching, gulping down deep lungfuls of air, Jack looked back at the cityscape behind him. Several shattered skyscrapers obstructed his view, but he could see the fall out from the last attack of the Autobots even from here. It flashed and rippled along the horizon.

His friends. Sacrificing themselves for this last chance. A chance that landed on Jack Darby's shoulders.

He didn't dare think about the scream of metal and rolling explosions. What was important was that they continued, for that meant the Autobots were still in the fight and Jack still had time to complete his mission.

If he didn't die of a heart attack first.

He was forty seven now and his health was not good. He was the last of the human allies that fought for the Autobots and he had been at it for thirty years. As many scars covered his body as did corded muscles. Deep lines covered his weathered face and his hair was shot through with gray.

He was not the young man he used to be.

He had only covered eleven blocks at the run and was already wheezing like a furnace. His shirt was sweated through under his combat tunic and he stood there massaging his arm, hoping he wouldn't pass out. He knew he had to move faster yet. But jinking through the ruins like this, picking his way down the littered and pock-marked streets and broken bridges, he didn't see how he could make it. If he went any faster he could take a fall for evening was coming on and his eyes were not what they used to be either.

Nothing for it but to keep moving. But he needed a miracle as he hefted the heavy backpack on his shoulders and blinked his vision clear.

To his utter surprise at that very moment, a Vehicon combo-flyer careened out of the skies in a long trail of flame and sparks. From where he now crouched by a bent light pole, Jack watched incredulously as the Con skidded down to a crash landing along the street just in front of him. The Con was riding an armored weapons platform that had been shot up, taking a few rounds himself, and the whole works slammed to a halt, pulverizing the remains of an old ice cream shoppe.

The Con was flung from the platform and through a brick wall, screeching in machine language rage and very much alive.

Jack's lips tightened into a line as he drew his treasured weapon from his hip.

MagnumX7. A conglomerate firearm custom built for him by Ratchet, now long dead, it nearly dwarfed Jack's hand but he couldn't have wished for better. He thumb a switch and thick fibre-plates and cables snaked out and locked around his wrist to the elbow, practically making it an extension of his arm.

And Jack was a good shot.

He was already running at a trot, his eyes glued to the hole in the wall the Con had gone through.

He would have to be. There's wouldn't be a second chance and now there wouldn't even be any more ammunition. The Autobots were broken. Drained. Hunted. Their resources spent. And Jack had hoarded the precious rounds for his weapon for years, until this final chance, when he had loaded all four remaining shells into his MagnumX7.

He was coming up fast when the Vehicon finally freed itself of the rubble and came struggling back out into the street.

For a moment Jack glimpsed the battle damage it had taken and that it seemed dazed and weakened.

All the better.

He didn't make a sound. No battle cry, no heroics. He just kept running.

Of course the Con' heard him and turned just as Jack reached the crashed platform. It was amazed to see a human level a huge sidearm with both hands up at him.

"What do you..." Was all it managed to snarl.

Jack shot the Con cleanly between the eyes with a clap of power that skidded him back on his worn combat boots. There was a blast of air, felt more than heard, that shattered the Con's face and blew it out the back of it's head, snapping it back through the hole like a felled tree.

Jack's arm hurt from his elbow all the way to the tips of his fingers as he retracted the forearm locks and holstered his weapon.

"Christ almighty." He winced, shaking his hand. It had been to long since he had fired that thing. He came up to the platform, hot from battle, the steel pinging and hissing as it lay at an angle in the ruins of the building.

Jack leaned heavily against the side.

"Now _both_ my arms hurt." He groaned, trying to massage some life back into his battered hands. The package in his backpack tingled warmly against his skin, even through the fabric of his jacket.

"Come on, Jackee boy. Up we go." He groaned as he started to climb.

This wasn't the first time he had piloted Transformer technology and he was rather adroit at it. These platforms were simple in how they were just huge flying armored discs, overpowered and blunt.

Still, it was built for living machine warriors sometimes four times his size, so there would be no sailing through the clouds like a daredevil. After a hasty bypass under the dash, and backing it out from where it was partially buried by bricks, all he could manage was to limp the wounded machine down the street at a better pace than he could have ran. But at least he could avoid all the clutter, cars and shell holes.

He sweated just as heavily though, struggling with just his own strength to keep the platform righted. He slammed into a few of those cars and nearly sent himself flying just as had happened to the Con.

It was tough going. Where the Con's could just press a pedal, Jack had to slam his foot down hard, and where they could steer this thing with a tap, he had to put his shoulders into it. And it was damaged and fighting him stubbornly, making him curse it as he wobbled along.

It's power readings were spiking and dropping too and the engine housing was whining ominously. Either it would simply die, or exploded. Just as long as it got him closer.

"Hold together you piece of shit." He snarled, ignoring his aching body, staying on his feet through will alone.

"I've got to get in there and you're just the key I need!"

Slowly he came in sight of the great black walls of the Decepticon Lab Complex.

The 'Splicer'.

What was the Spilcer? The Splicer was the brain child of Knock-Out. The most accursed Decepticon to ever set foot on Earth. Twenty five years ago Knock-Out had dropped the facade of a preening prima-donna and had turned his attentions to that creature that was mankind. Almost over night, fueled by his own mad designs and new twisted agendas, he had transformed himself into nothing less than a mad scientist. How? He gave life to the idea of meshing Transformer life with human in a fit of genius that forever changed the face of the world.

And the war.

It had taken everyone by surprise, even the Decepticons. All Knock-Out had ever needed was a chance...and Ratchet's stolen synthetic energon.

What burst forth from his laboratories was a soulless killer matched by neither human nor Transformer and was ultimately destined to be more lethal than both. For either by design or by accident, the perfect balance had been achieved, playing to the strongest and most lethal characteristics of both races and greatly enhance by this new energy.

These 'Bio-Terror's' were of a size with most medium sized Transformers, but they looked human for the most part. And indeed it was hard to tell where the machine ended and the flesh began. Knock-Out himself had crowed that even he didn't know which half was which or what it was that made them so deadly.

Perhaps it was the human instinct to kill, back by a Transformers power.

But it hardly mattered.

Since the Transformer half of them was integrated with human bio-mechanisms it made them faster, more lethal, predatory and unlike anything either race had ever seen. What was even more horrible was that Knock-Out did not choose soccer mom's and baseball coaches to give life to his creations. He chose criminals, gang lords, murderers and the worst mankind could offer. Those men and women who craved the kind of power he promised.

The first Bio-Terror's had even volunteered. And when they didn't, Knock-Out took them anyway, raising entire legions of maddened killers 'grown' to obey only himself, slowly tweaking the process until he _could_ those same soccer moms and baseball coaches to unleash a new slavering monster.

Natural 'grown' killers he had cackled and they swept mankind away before them. And what Transformers they couldn't over-power, they brought down by sheer numbers.

So it was that Megatron was rumored to have met his end. Prime too. And the Autobots, already out-numbered and crippled by the moral quandary of harming human life, acted to late to stop Knock-Out.

With revulsion Jack had seen for himself how lethal the Bio-Terror's were. Kill the flesh, the Transformer within kept them moving. Kill the Transformer, and the maddened flesh fought on.

When they had seen waves of the creatures howling and leaping across the battlefield to drag down mighty Autobot warriors, Miko, for the first time in her life, had not been joking when she said they were like blood-hound zombies to insane to die.

And two days later she and Bulkhead had been literally ripped apart in an ambush.

Ratchet was inconsolable beyond comparison by then anyway. Time and again he blamed himself for letting the formula fall into Knock-Out's hands. He blamed himself for everything.

And he came as close to madness as a Transformer ever could in those early years. Only his duty to others kept him from seeking out his own destruction and gradually he and Jack grew closer for it after Prime's disappearance.

It was then he began to teach Jack everything he new and together they hatched a plan to bring Knock-Out down. It wasn't until later Jack realized that the mission they concocted had nothing to do with victory, but in obtaining the key to victory.

And Ratchet knew all along he would never survive it.

But Jack did. And it had taken him the last eight years to make ready.

He was the key to the 'Splicer' and now he was going back.

**ooo**


	2. Chapter 2

The armored platform rode a tail of flame down the street like a comet. The two Vehicon guards saw it coming far to late and all they could do was cry out before the burning craft bowled into them.

It swept them up and held together just long enough to exploded right inside the gateway with catastrophic effect. The great arch with its double doors leading into the building cracked like an eggshell and secondary explosions brought the whole works down.

Jack was already running, harder than he ever had before. The heavy backpack, strapped tight to his body, felt curiously light. And he himself felt light headed from the adrenaline. But he had to get inside. Risking flame and fire and broken legs, he had to run this gauntlet before the Decepticons had time to react.

Back at Autobot base, Jack had voiced a hundred reasons why he would fail this mission before it had even begun.

Wheeljack had told him to just improvise as he went along.

Well, this one was worthy of the Wreckers.

Before the gift of this armored skid, he had thought to try the roof. The great black dome itself sitting like an oily tumor in the heart of the city. And then get into the duct works from there somehow. He even had a climbing rig strapped across his lower back under his backpack for that very purpose.

But as he neared the complex, taking in the scale of the thing once more after eight long years, he knew that had been a fools hope. Feeling like he did, he wouldn't be scaling anything.

So he chose something a little more direct.

Jack Darby, human, ran through a self made hell of falling debris, fire and jagged steel to scramble through the hole he had blasted in the wall of the Splicer.

Dioxide extinguishers erupted into life all around and above him from hidden alcoves in undamaged parts of the walls, killing the flame and clearing the air.

It didn't matter. Jack needed a delicate balance of cover while still being able to see and he was sporting a working gas mask the whole way.

Once inside the damned place he knew exactly where to go.

Heaven help him, he knew the place like the back of his hand. Especially the duct work, and his mind ached with the knowledge.

His raced through the 'lobby' and down a hallway, never pausing for an instant. He couldn't afford to worry about anything else as skidded to a stop next to a certain air duct set in one soot covered wall. Everything depended on fast thinking and faster action and none of the hesitating teenager who began this war remained in the ailing man that he was now.

But what he wouldn't give for that youth again.

Just as he made it, just as he got it opened and worked his way under it, the heavy grill slamming behind him, the emergency response teams arrived. The hallway was filling with fumes and smoke despite the dioxide sprayers and Jack went unnoticed.

Still, he prayed no Bio-Terrors were among them, counting on how Knock-Out had committed his reserves to the Autobot's desperate attack and without looking back he scrambled down the duct on all fours, his vision swimming as he willed himself not to vomit in his gas mask.

He made it through three turns, finally tearing the mask off himself as fresh air rushed past him to vent out the entrance he had destroyed.

Then he did throw up.

..._and _pass out.

**ooo**

_We're almost there._

Jack woke with a start, his mind foggy and everything indistinct. The steel duct work he had passed out in was blurry and smelled of cold metal and bile and for a horrible moment it felt like the building had swallowed him.

Fine time to turn claustrophobic.

He gave a small cough and shook his head as it all came back to him, slipping a bandanna free from a pocket on his fatigues and wiping his face off.

He took stock of himself then and groaned lightly, pressing the rag to his forehead.

He wasn't doing so hot.

His muscles burned. He was cold and sweating and shivering all at the same time. His stomach hurt and his face felt numb. A quick check showed him his blood pressure was just this side of awful.

Old wounds zapped his energy too and so dire was the moment, alone and feeling the way he did, Jack actually sobbed a little as he struggled to reach down and unlatch the pouch at his side.

He was scared.

Because in that moment, he knew he was dead. He had made it. He was inside. But he was _dead_.

It wasn't the danger of battle or even his own sense of mortality.

He had faced death many times.

What he felt was the absolute _truth _that he _really_ _was_ going to die. He was down to his last few hours on this earth.

It was something akin to actually being close enough to feel it. As in right there. Right next to him in the air duct like a black blanket over his mind. When it was just him and his life and nothing else.

No other reasons mattered. No other circumstances or emotions or thoughts. Not even pain.

Life was never easy but it was still life.

And death for him remained an uncertainty of anything else...but death itself.

It wasn't a release. It wasn't an escape.

It was just death. And right now it was black and cold, empty and final.

It made his hands shake and tears run down his dirty cheeks unashamedly where he lay.

Despite all that he had seen, all that he had lost, Jack Darby wanted to live.

But he had passed the point of no return and knew this place would be where he died. And while that terror wanted to eat him up...at least now his death would mean something. That he had hung in there and did his best and didn't just selfishly lie down to it. In fact, he still had much to do.

He owed _himself _that much. And the Autobots and his friends and his mother.

He was here. This was now. It was his life and he wanted every last second to count. So he dried his tears and silently blew his nose. He wouldn't cry anymore.

Instead...he ate lunch. His hands shook a little less as he unwrapped his food. He had went to long without water and something solid and did manage to keep it all down despite his nausea. When he was done eating, he went to cap his canteen after washing down some pills but then he stopped.

That black cold empty feeling welled up again for a moment at the finality of his situation.

But then Jack actually smirked and drained the last of his water away.

Fuck em'.

He was scared, sure, but determined to live long enough to bring the house down. He tidied up and started to crawl ahead, chagrined at the time he wasted here and comforted by the warm tingle from his backpack and it's familiar weight.

Oh yes.

_Really _bring the house down.

**ooo**

Thirty three minutes he crawled. The Splicer itself was a maze of madness. With as many levels above ground as below. But Jack knew where to go, even after altering his game plan. Up, then down, back then forwards, around and over...but never lost. He crawled until his knees felt like mush and his fingers bled. He crawled fast because he was behind schedule, but also in a sick perversion of chastisement, he crawled to punish himself. He banged his body around needlessly and was reckless in cramped spaces, beating himself up and doggedly crawling on. Working far harder at it than he really had too.

He did have a plan. A plan he couldn't help but follow. But he pointedly ignored the psychology behind his sudden self-abuse. If he stopped to think about it again, he might give up all together. Or worse he would imagine things in the dark. New, smaller terrors with many legs unleashed by Knock-Out to scour the duct work. Hunting for humans.

Nope. Can't do that. That way lay paranoia. Knock-Out was insane. A genius. Clever and deadly. But when he had taken command of the Decepticons, he fell for that fatal pride of arrogance.

He was to busy being _smug _to be smart.

Jack had to believe that.

And the sounds of the great building around him were deafening, hiding his presence. The walls of the place shook and wailed and hissed and groaned this deep in. The foundries of Knock-Out never stopped turning out armor and weapons for his sick creations. Jack could have sang at the top of his lungs and no one would have heard him up here. The air was stuffy and thick with the smell of hot oil in this latest section.

Finally though the duct he was in opened up to standing height and Jack sighed as he crawled out and climbed to his feet. The air was better here and his vision cleared.

No more fuckin' around. Can't go to pieces now.

On we go, Jackee Boy.

And he began to run.

He made up some time then, his body feeling a little stronger, barring his numb knees and still aching hands.

And without pause, again he knew exactly where to go. Six more minutes and now Jack was into an area that he _did _have to be quiet.

He was above what passed for the Decepticon quarters and with unerring accuracy he made his way over to what could be passed off as the common room. Vehicons gathered here sometimes, passing the time off duty and socializing like soldiers would. It was even part cafeteria and as they awaited orders. An according to Ratchet's schematics it was the one place the duct work could take him in far enough.

Luck would have to do the rest and for the first time that day Jack's heart soared when he got down and peered into the room through the grill of an intake vent.

No Con's. The whole place must have a skeleton staff what with the battle and the entrance explosion he had caused.

He would like to rest. He had been going at it full steam now for some time, not counting passing out.

But Jack was no fool. Neither were the Con's. Sure, if he was extremely lucky the Con's might attribute what happened at the entrance as a crash landing from the battle.

But Knock-Out might be to clever for that. So Jack had to count on Knock-Out's lifetime of megalomania and _not _his paranoia to help him stay undetected. They wouldn't think to be looking for him.

Jack Darby? The fleshling? That little maggot? Ha!

_Better keep moving. _

He prepped his climbing gear quickly and began to unlatch the grill.

Let them suspect the Autobots, he willed. Let them be suspicious of their own kind and forget I am still alive. Let the Decepticons underestimate humans just a little longer. Just one more time. Let them all be watching the battle. Knock-Out only knew how to use humans in his work. He didn't understand them. He only knew savagery, not determination.

Just. One. More. Time.

Attaching small anchor lines, Jack worked the grill free, took the weight on his aching arms and maneuvered the heavy cover sideways back into the duct.

His heart rate was erratic again and his mouth tasted strong of copper as he laid it aside.

Blood?

He started when he realized his nose was bleeding freely down his cheek and onto his jacket.

Keep it together. I've got to make it. I have to. He pushed the small tough coil of rope out and fed it down into the room.

But his last card depended on so many uncertainties. Like no one looking up at the ceiling to see this grill removed. Like getting out of this room without being seen.

Like no one believing Jack was capable of what he meant to do.

He hooked up and worked himself out, taking a deep breath and slipping fully out of the duct.

Bastards. He'd show them.

He wasn't a maggot. He was an ant.

And he was bringing a huge 'apple' to the picnic.


	3. Chapter 3

Everything went wrong that could go wrong.

Even the great mythical heroes of old could encounter a moment that caught them unprepared. Something impossible or unexpected. Either a momentary weakness or just a simple accident.

And then death rushes up to see what the noise was.

Jack was just a man. At the mercy of his own luck and the salvaged gear he had to work with.

His boots were ten feet off the table when the rope twisted up inside the repel armature and with a soft little bounce he stopped in mid air. He fought to get a better look, his mind racing.

"Oh shit!" He hissed.

Discarding half a dozen frantic ideas he went for his knife. But when he shifted his weight on the rope, the knot worked loose just as smoothly as it had happened. His weakened grip fed out way to much slack with Jack's full weight still on the line.

Normally he would have fell, but unfortunately he had taken hold of the rope with his free hand as well and when the repel armature slipped out of his fist it slammed up into his other hand, breaking two fingers and mangling them in the mechanism.

For one horrible second Jack swung by his hand with a scream of pain and then everything came undone and he hit the table below him with a crash.

The backpack he was carrying mashed his ribs and he groaned, rolling off the table and to the floor, dragging it over with him.

Having landed on his side, he lay there for a moment.

It hurt so much he could barely breathe.

_Oh no! _

Dragging air into his bruised lungs, he struggled up to his knees, hugging his hand to himself, the heavy backpack sliding off to one side.

"Oh. fuck me." he moaned weakly as he slumped against the over turned table.

_Get up, Jack!_

His head was ringing but there was no mistaking the heavy tread of armored boots pounding into the room.

Jack Darby had always been an unwilling warrior. A long time ago Ratchet had once said that he had something in common with Optimus Prime. He couldn't for the life of him remember what that was but he did know one thing.

Optimus had a temper.

And suddenly this was just one pain too many for Jack's.

If he was well and truly caught, he wasn't going quietly.

When the Vehicon rumbled into the room, Jack snarled like an animal and with a burst of adrenaline, with his good hand he ripped his one and only grenade free from his belt and armed it with his thumb. He reared up and drew his arm back, the side of his jacket already soaking with blood where he pressed his mangled fist to his side.

"Catch, asshole!" He shouted.

"What the hell? Halt!" the startled Con roared, to perplexed to do anything _but _catch the grenade that Jack fired right at him.

Jack ducked back behind the table as the grenade went off, blowing the Con's arms apart and shattering it's body into a tangled mess that sprayed blue energon across the wall behind it.

Klaxons began to wail. Sprinklers burst and soaked Jack instantly. He was near to passing out and the shock of the icy water helped. His chest heaving, he frantically scooped up his climbing gear and shoved it into his empty ration pack. His ears were ringing. All he could hear was his pulse pounding in his ears. Every time he moved his injured hand it burned like fire down his arm to the elbow. He still clutched it hard to his side as he struggled to get out of here.

He felt like a wild animal trapped in a pit. Only difference was this animal knew he was going to be shot when the hunters came back. Fear gave him strength. Jack reeled up on to his feet once more. He blinked in the rain, pausing just a moment to get his bearings and shrugging his backpack back up onto his back.

The place was going lock down but this was where he needed to be. This was his focal point all along according to the schematics he studied, and the blast door slowly coming down at the far end of the room was part of the inner complex where Knock-Out held court.

He was almost there. The only way in. Where the air ducts wouldn't take him.

_There. Run, Jack. Run!_

"See Jack run." He laughed weakly.

_ A_drenaline kept him going, slipping under the door with time to spare even as two more Vehicons came into the room behind him. The sprinklers weren't running out here in this long curving hallway. It was clean, paneled and well maintained. Surreal. In fact as the blast door came all the way down behind him, shutting off the noise, it felt eerily familiar. Like a shopping mall after hours and Jack knew he was finally inside Knock-Out's inner sanctum.

Smaller labs and storerooms branched off to the sides but Jack stumbled on, praying there were no more Con's here.

He needed a moment. Just a moment. And nearly collapsing against a wall he sagged down to his knees, propped up on one arm.

Water streamed off him. He forced himself not to vomit, fighting to get his breathing under control.

He didn't dare look at his hand. He shook the water out of his eyes and looked around, lurching back to his feet and leaving a bloody hand print on the wall.

This place was the start of Knock-Out's private labs, deepest secrets and throne room. The whole nexus and hub of the entire complex.

I'm in. I did it. I made it.

He started back up.

The place grew more lavish and gaudy the further he went. And even though the game was up, Jack had planned on this all along. The systems here ran separately from everything else. Even the venting. He had planned to get close enough, slip inside and then trigger the alarms to lock himself in.

A little unorthodox just now, but he had achieved exactly that. And he still held out hope that maybe he had been lucky enough to lock _everyone out _and hadn't locked _anyone in_.

Whatta gamble.

He took no time to reflect though he just kept moving, shuffling ahead.

He had a chance. It reminded him of the days he had raced through the Decepticon flagship trailing Miko and Ralph. He could be overlooked even now. He could still make it.

He was pretty busted up though. In fact he felt like he was failing fast and there might be fighting yet to do. He didn't dare think about the new pains all over his body. His hair dripped wetly in his eyes, his side was soaked with blood from his hand, and he was limping. The precious payload he had landed on when he fell did more damage than he cared to admit. A rib. Maybe more than one. And he felt feverish all of a sudden. That soon? The adrenaline was wearing off. Leaving him drained. Was he going into shock?

He slowed down with a groan again, propped up with one good hand on one good leg.

And let's not forget my heart. Thirty years of this shit. I feel like like I'm sixty.

He had to keep moving. Maybe his luck still held and confusion would reign supreme a little longer. Long enough to get him down into the heart of the place. Would he have enough time then before they _really_ came looking for him? Once the alarm was canceled?

Let them stay stupid. Just a little longer.

Please.

He coughed as he started back up for a second time, shuffling along, his feet feeling heavy as he rubbed water out of his eyes with the back of his good hand.

Where was it? Elevator. Going down. That was the door he needed to find. It was green. A green door. He liked green.

Stay awake. Focus.

His eyes were blurry again and he shook his head to clear them.

"I can do this. I can do this." He whispered.

_Yes you can._

"I'm a Wrecker." He gasped, blinking hard.

_Yes. Keep going._

"I'm a Wrecker. I'm a Wrecker." he repeated like a mantra as he stumbled along.

He limped into a spacious room, the walls lined with holograms and the floor dotted with display cases filled with what passed for art to Knock-Out.

I know this place. Follow the floor plan. Almost there.

Jack turned his head to spit a little blood and this is what saved his life.

There was a blur of blood red in the air and something struck Jack so forcefully he felt something else give inside him with a dull burst of pain. As it was he was barely grazed by the blow, though it did launch him through the air, slamming him into the wall. He slid to the floor with a whimper, in so much pain he didn't even cry out.

Knock-Out shuffled out from among the display cases in the room, his punch failing to pulverize the human who had plagued him for mega-cycles.

"I _knew_ it! You! You dirty little rat!" he snarled.

Long gone was the vain posturing medic of the Decepticon flagship. A wretched and depraved existence, drunk with power, had twisted and corrupted him all these years as surely as a disease.

He was a corroded, garish parody of himself. A patchwork of parts, rust and self-inflicted mutilation. His body reeked of foul chemicals and grease and he was arrayed with all manner of rusty tools and grisly trophies both human and transformer. And what was left of his old red paint scheme made him look like he was covered in dried blood

It was fitting.

"You stinking little maggot! You dare come here?!" He snarled as he limped forward, one of his legs a deformed ruin dragging behind him. He supported himself on a twisted steel cane decorated in horrible little fetishes. Like a mad witch-doctor.

With a groan Jack rolled back onto his hands and knees and managed to look up. He was revolted by Knock-Out's appearance more than anything he had seen so far.

The twisted Decepticon raved on.

"I always knew you would try it. I always knew the files were out there. Stolen! Ratchet's defiant final act sticking in my thoughts like a rusty nail. So I knew the moment this attack began we could count on seeing Jack Darby and his bag-of-bones dream!"

"You didn't know shit!" Jack snarled back at him, his lips split and bleeding and clutching his damaged hand to his chest again.

Knock-Out drew closer to Jack, seemingly intent on grinding him into paste with one heavy foot. Deformed and crippled or not, Jack was hardly in any shape to get away from him.

He just knelt there as Knock-Out drew up to him.

"Filthy worm. You're not even worthy to become one of my children! You're dying on your feet!" Knock-Out cackled, stopping just a few paces from Jack. "I can tell." he sneered.

He leaned over to leer at the human.

"Was that your plan? Hmm? To sneak in and try it on yourself? Hmm? You fool. You shouldn't have come here. There are worse things than death." Knock-Out cackled. His face was lit with feverish madness and Jack wondered, not for the first time, what had taken him down that path he had chosen. All he could do was glare.

Knock-Out paused and smiled wickedly.

"I know what you're thinking, Darby. You want to know why I did it."

"That won't change the fact you did." Jack replied, spitting some blood onto the floor. "You're like a crazy Doctor Seuss churning out monsters from those machines of yours."

"You little bastard!" Knock-Out snarled.

Jack reared up and shot Knock-Out just as the Decepticon lurched forward with an out stretched hand.

The MagnumX7 roared, blasting one of it's special shells straight into Knock-Out's midsection.

He screamed as he hugged his body, doubling over and dropping his cane, his mind unable to comprehend that Jack had just shot away most of his stomach. He would have fallen but Jack shot him again, right through the hands, the shell blowing them apart and nearly vivisecting him as it went clean through his body.

Knock-Out wailed as he pitched around and crashed to the floor, dragging down a display case. He lay there, writhing in agony and clawing at the floor with the stumps of his wrists. Jack doubled over for a moment, catching his breath, and then painfully got to his feet, keeping a wary distance and staying to Knock-Out's left.

"You fucking worm!" Knock-Out screamed, lurching around suddenly to glare at him with wild eyes.

"Do you have any idea what you have done?!" He roared as he turned back and tried to crawl away. Jack blinked the haze out of his eyes.

"I spared myself any more of your monologue." Jack said simply. Knock-Out crawled on, knocking over a few more cases filled with rusty trophies to his own gloating ego.

But even now Jack Darby was not a cruel man.

He was just a man. Taking a deep breath he steadied himself and came forward. Six paces away he leveled the weapon at the back of Knock-Out's head and put an end to his tyranny.

He let the empty weapon drop then near the headless corpse of Knock-Out. Shooting it free hand had nearly broken his arm but Jack's body was growing numb with all the shock and abuse. A moment more and he was in possession of the key-cards, clutched in numb fingers, and with a groan he limped off further into the mad Decepticons sanctuary. He could keep himself locked in now, giving himself more time.

Yeah sure. Plenty of time.

If he didn't just keel over and die first.

**ooo**


	4. Chapter 4

_I never liked Earth. Who would have thought I was going to die here?_

_ Wheeljack_ sighed as he looked back down from studying the sky.

Why had the war on earth taken such a toll? It's not like he was a rookie. He had been at 'war' for so long it was hard to count the centuries. And to a Transformer this was usually no big deal although the length of time usually stunned most humans.

But it was something about fighting on earth that real wore them out. Was it the air? The dirt? The salt water?

I mean, he was _really_ feeling his age. He had been patched up and put back together more times than he could count, but on earth he had come to feel _old_. His _spark _felt old. And for a being that waged war longer than the life of some planets, to be worn down by fighting was a new and horribly unwelcome sensation.

As he knelt behind the earthen berm, shaking his head at the cacophony of battle around him, it slowly dawned on him he might be living the answer right now.

Time was closing in. They really _were_ loosing. It wasn't a matter of if, but of when. Perhaps whatever great deity rolled the cosmos along was taking them to task for squandering their lives. Was it time for them to finally pay the toll of having lived so long and accomplished nothing but fighting? Did the scales finally tip? Was this how they were told _you've had your chance, pay up?_

It would stand to reason it would be sudden like that. Some kind of cosmic poetic justice that beings so long lived were blindsided but how quickly they were going to go instinct.

And the unlucky ones were there at the end to see it coming.

Thirty measly little years of Earth time and the gig was up.

Wheeljack poked his head up for a moment, witness to the howling waves of Bio-Terrors charging Smokescreens position.

He smirked at himself.

_Fine time to turn philosopher, you old bastard._

He cranked the handle on the detonator in his hands and the whole bank of Det-mines rippled down the front of Smokescreens position like they were blasting minerals out of the rock. In fact, that's what the mines were originally for. But they made a wonderful mess of those inhuman shits howling like animals.

The ones behind the first wave skidded to a halt, screeching in pain and frustration, and that stopped them right on top of the next line of buried mines so Wheeljack obligingly set those off as well.

Bio-Terrors were flung through the air in handfuls and he grinned wickedly.

He ducked back down only to notice the three female Bio-Terrors sliding into the trench forty yards down on his right, their feral eyes locked on him and glowing in the dim light. They were hissing, showing filed teeth and brandishing close-combat knives.

"Ah, hell." He muttered, standing up and backing down the trench a little. If he had a choice he preferred males. The males were marginally slower, albeit stronger, and Wheeljack could take a punch more than he could stop these lightning quick bitches.

"Well ladies, ya caught me red handed. Any chance we can talk this over?" He raised his hands. The came at him all at once, a blur of motion down the trench, and Wheeljack whipped up his RT8 cannon and hosed the trench down in a long stream of spray and pray.

He knew he had them down but then one of them came sailing up over the chaos of his sustained fire and slammed down onto him.

Wheeljack went down hard, on his back, coming face to face with the Bio-Terror female. Half of her face had been shot away, and she leaned in with a sultry smile, drooling blood and spit all over his face guard.

"What's the matter, handsome? Don't you want to kiss me?" She gurgled, struggling to push her daggers into his chest where he barely held her arms at bay.

"Baby, you got_ real_ ugly." Wheeljack quipped. He heard that one on TV once. He used to enjoy human TV on a time.

Then he headbutted her.

Bio-Terror or not, her eyes slammed shut, watering, and she hissed like a snake, thrashing in his grip. With one heave of his slightly greater strength, he slammed her against the trench wall with one arm and snatched up his cannon with the other.

His close range fire all but obliterated her.

"_Shit_." He snarled, getting to his feet. He turned to see his human allies staring at him where they crouched petrified in their positions.

Once elite shock troops, now they were a rag tag bunch of mismatched gear and weapons. Their were some old hands among them but not of _them_ were under forty. The youngsters eyes were all wide behind their chemical hoods.

"This position is compromised. Fall back." They all listened like soldiers though, having long become used to the sight of a muddied and bloodied Autobot. It's just that when the three females attacked, they knew they were dead if Wheeljack hadn't stopped them. Now the old hands kicked and bawled them out, getting them to hustle back down the trench towards Smokescreens position.

Wheeljack turned back around as big male came stalking down into the trenches. He ignored the shattered bodies of the females, swinging two great cleavers through the air in his meaty fists. He roared when he saw Wheeljack, his mouth a round hole of rage as he came down the trench at a heavy walk. One of the three females stirred suddenly, screeching in pain, and he crushed her under his cloven feet without even a glance.

"Feel the love." Wheeljack mocked him, unlimbering his own swords.

"Come get some, big boy."

**ooo**

Smokescreen turned as Wheeljack came stumbling up, shy one sword and nearly battered to pieces.

"What happened ?" he cried.

"They're in the western trenches. We gotta blow em'."

"Is everybody clear?"

Wheeljack slumped down and looked up at his friend.

"We've _got _to blow them." He said slowly and deliberately.

Smokescreen nodded grimly and turning to a pile of sandbags, he pulled a few aside and came up with a preset detonator. Even from here they could hear the scream of the Bio-Terrors in the western trench. Pausing for a moment, he then cranked the handle and the whole western slope vanished in an explosion that gave the whole battle pause.

He climbed up onto an observation step and raised his mag-log binoculars as the earth rained back down in brown clumps of mud all over the place.

"This is bad." He pursed his lips. Blowing the first trench works was the beginning of the end. It wouldn't change a thing, it was just a nice finish to a hopeless fight.

"Yep." Wheeljack answered, wiping the gore off his face guard with a handful of mud.

"Here come even _more_ of them. Right back down into the hole."

"We can hold them from the front here. And if we set up a Mag50 pointing back that way we can stop any coming down the trench to flank us." Wheeljack offered.

Smokescreen jumped down into the trench and turned to their human allies.

"Get out of here." Was all he said. And they did.

He turned to Wheeljack.

"We yank a fifty out of the line now and they'll take us from the front." He chewed his lip.

"Well gawdammit then, which way would you like to face as we kill as many as we can?"

"I don't think that's up to us anymore." Smokescreen replied with a nod of his head.

The Bio-Terrors were fast. The churned up earth of the shattered western trenches didn't even slow them down and they filled it up like a break in the dam. The howled as they clawed and tore their way down into the far left flank and moments later they were racing down the trench headed east. Fifty strong. More than enough to roll up the whole Autobot position.

Wheeljack looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide.

"Oh momma, this is it." He said as he struggled up and turned around. The ground shook. Smokescreen, intent on the horde bearing down on them, slipped two grenades into his fists, a grim look on his face.

Balls of earth rolled off the sides of the trench and the water puddles at their feet were dancing around.

"What the hell?" Wheeljack frowned, looking around.

A mountain reared up behind Smokescreen, above his head along the lip of the trench. He still failed to notice it. A Golden pyramid bristling with weapons.

"Move!" Wheeljack cried, grabbing Smokescreen and pulling him back. The massive golden monster reared up and then over the side as the two Autobot warriors scrambled out of the way.

Roaring down into the trench and nearly filling it with it's bulk, the mountain pivoted on four wide treads, digging up positions and creating new ones all in one motion. It effectively plugged the end of the trench and when it finished it's turn, it's great battle sirens roared like an angry God.

The Bio-Terrors saw it of course and they howled in dismay, redoubling their efforts to reach the Autobots.

Then the great tank opened fire.

A virtual wave of hellfire stitched it's way back down the trench and washed over the Bio-Terrors almost gently, bursting them apart with deceptive ease. There was no stopping such firepower this close and the shells roaring out from the tank were hardly slowed by the softer bodies of the Bio-Terrors.

"Holy shit!" Smokescreen cried, his voice drowned out by the noise. Both of them were pummeled by the roar of the guns. The very air shook with it

It plowed the Bio-terrors down and not for the first time that day, the survivors broke and fled, screeching in rage as they gave up their flanking maneuver.

As long as _that _Autobot was there, they'd never get through.

When the fire died away, a blue haze of cordite filling the bottom of the trench, the new arrival transformed, his body unfolding and the great cannons rising up onto his shoulders like armored wings.

Wheeljack and Smokescreen, a little stunned, came forward.

The golden one turned to them, wiping mud of his broad arms, the barrels of his weapons steaming in the air.

"For fuck's sake, Bumblebee!" Smokescreen spouted, clipping his grenades back on his belt.

"Don't call me that." he replied.

**ooo**

A human mech-medic was welding the gashes in Wheeljack shut, triage style right there in the trench. Wheeljack relished the slight discomfort because he felt it kept him sharp.

He looked out over the battlefield with a practiced eye.

Bumblebee, scratch that, Bonebreaker, couldn't be everywhere at once. And reports were The Splicer was emptying out with waves of Bio-Terrors that made this first one look like a vanguard.

That was good news and bad news.

Good...because that's exactly what they wanted. Knock-Out knew Bonebreaker was here by now. Bonebreaker, the last guardian class Autobot. An old hulk salvaged from Cybertron and refurbished off of Bumblebee's previous body by dwindling United States military resources, he was a rolling weapons platform of mass destruction. Their only effective answer to the Bio-terrors and the only thing preventing total defeat.

Knock-Out wanted him dead in the worst way.

And that was bad...because that meant every Bio-Terror that could be counted was on it's way here.

Bonebreaker wouldn't make much of a difference now. There were just to many. They were all resolved to hold as long as they could though and take down as many as they could. This was really it and Wheeljack was back to brooding about his fate.

Deep down a part of him wished it was all over. He didn't want to keep reliving near-death in the coming hours. He didn't want to keep guessing where it would come from or where it would fall. If he was lucky, he wouldn't even know.

Nearly all his friends were gone. And now even Prime, Arcee...Ratchet and good ol' Bulkhead. The core team he had come to secretly care for more than any other he had served with.

All gone.

But then, sitting here like this and seeing his human allies doggedly hanging in there, slogging through the mud and soldiering on, Wheeljack felt a little ashamed.

And quite simply, it came to him that it wasn't fighting on earth that made him feel old, it was the humans themselves.

They were so small and...breakable. Fragile. Weak to the extreme. And even if they managed to survive the plethora of things that could so easily snuff out their sparks, their lives were so short lived compared to a Transformer that he could barely grasp how it must feel.

And yet here they were. Fighting back. Taking a stand. Tenacious and determined to make it count now matter how it turned out.

He could admire that. And if he didn't already, he should.

These humans had never _asked_ for this war, they just simply tightened their belts and threw in their lot with the Autobots. A few of them over the years resented and hated all Transformers for what they had brought to their world. But most recognized the Autobot's for what they stood for and were willing to fight and die alongside them for as long as it took.

The last traces of Wheeljack's fatigue with earth and his earlier defeatism left him.

Who the hell was he to complain?

If they could toe the line for him, he was not about to do any less. He grimaced a little, disgusted with himself that it took him so long to wake up to such simple truths.

Right now in the last hour.

Well...Prime would have been pleased regardless.

**ooo**

The mech-medic had finished and straightened up to pack up his gear. The man was bone tired and his shoulders slumped, his breathing was to heavy and labored behind his chemical hood.

Without a word he hefted the portable welder on his back and made ready to leave.

Wheeljack studied him, mulling over his new feelings.

"Philosopher _and _romantic." He smirked to himself.

"Sir?" the mech-medic looked back.

"Nothing." Wheeljack answered. The man gave a tired salute and turned to walk away.

"Hey soldier." Wheeljack called.

"Yes sir?" the man turned back for a moment.

"Thanks." Wheeljack said and the man nodded, his shoulders coming up a bit straighter and then he turned to slog off through the mud.

Wheeljack turned his eyes towards the ruins of the city off to the east.

_I never wished Jack good luck._

Wheeljack could hear the rising wail of the Bio-Terrors. Men, women and Autobot's alike bracing themselves for the inevitable attack. Wheeljack was still looking over at the city.

He stood up suddenly and strode out into the trench through the mud. He wasn't exactly admired among the humans. He was known to be callus and blunt, but they respected him as a warrior. He in turn never had much to say to them but now he stepped up onto an observation platform, his hands on his hips, to look out over no-mans-land.

He scoffed after a moment, sliding his sword free and swishing it through the air. He had their attention now and most of them were looking up at him as he stood there.

Indomitable...and proud to be where he was.

"This isn't exactly fair. They should have brought their friends." He smirked and more than one of the soldiers around him had to smile. Wheeljack smiled back at them with an encouraging nod and now they knew he was truly with them.

He looked back at the Bio-Terrors and his armored grill slapped into place.

_Ok, Jack Darby...let's show em' what we're made of._


	5. Chapter 5

Jack paused and looked around where he worked for the fifth time, his mind wandering as his body weakened.

It was unreal. It was anti-climatic. After so many years of hardship, to have it all wrapping up so nicely left him feeling vague and uncertain and for minutes at a time he would daydream.

He supposed it was because the death of enemy could affect you as much as the death of a loved one. They had never been able to get close to Knock-Out before and now Jack had walked in and blew his head off.

Did he really just do that?

Couldn't that have been possible years ago? Like when Ratchet stormed the complex? Or the great battle where Prime disappeared?

Jack knew the answer. All these years had whittled the Autobots down to what they were now while every victory made Knock-Out all the more over-confident. That's why in his rabid lust he had finally emptied the complex to crush the Autobots once and for all.

And that's why Jack was here now, in this all or nothing gambit

For stopping Knock-Out would not have stopped the Bio-Terrors. That would take something else.

Something else entirely that they had worked so hard for and suffered so much.

Jack grinned as he went back to work, his teeth pink with blood.

He was ready. All his bypasses were complete and he blinked rapidly to leaf through the schematics only he could see.

Ratchets precious files. Bought with his life. Plans Jack had lived with every since they had been downloaded directly into his cerebral cortex. A fine, delicate enhancement made them a crystal clear over-lay in his vision accessed by a series of blinks so Jack could work directly from them if and when he ever made it this far.

A whole working blue print of the building and what was even more, the program Knock-Out used to create a bio-terror. Not the actual matrix itself, no, but how to use the machine Jack was working on.

Down here in the deepest lab, Jack knelt at the base of a control console that sat at the foot of one of the huge blackened steel machines called a Bio-forge.

Splayed out at six points like a star, rising a full story up from the floor like a metal eruption and topped of with a lone Bio-tube at the very top, there were twenty in this room alone.

The tubes were filled with milky amniotic fluid and the machine housing was crisscrossed with numerous black hoses and feeds hanging down from the ceiling and coiled up about their base from the floor. They all hummed with unworldly power.

He shook his head. He was staring again.

Come on Jackee Boy. No more daydreaming.

He kept at it, wincing, forcing his damaged hands to work. Cotton and electrical tape did for most of the damage but he was still leaving blood on everything he touched. That was ok. The pain kept him awake.

Jack couldn't recognize half of what he saw anyway, but he did recognize the long green tubes of synthetic energon feeding into the side of every single machine. And surely somewhere within the forges the horrifying human components were held in stasis until needed.

And this one was all prepped and ready to go.

Wiping his hands on his knees, almost reverently Jack turned and folded back his burnt and travel stained backpack to reveal the crumpled metal lump within. The steady pulse of a life support unit gave his face a warm glow. Here it was. Another of Ratchet's wonders that was a curse to the old medic as much as it was a necessity. But at the time, in the earliest stages of forming their plan, he and Jack had agreed that it was the only solution.

"Hello Arcee." Jack sighed.

**ooo**

Jack smiled through the pain, running his ruined hands over the weathered hunk of metal that incredibly housed Arcee's living spark. All that was left of her. Taken right from her chest. Her spark chamber.

A gentle contrast to Knock-Out's mad genius, Ratchet had worked stolen secrets to preserve Arcee when she fell in battle. To call her back from the brink. To keep her like this. To wait for the day when they would have their chance to get her inside and bring her back to life.

To bring the house down.

Jack was just moments from that, struggling up off his knees and setting the backpack with it's precious cargo on the console so he could tie it directly into the machine and feed Arcee's spark into the matrix.

It was almost simple. He didn't really feel that much pain anymore.

But blood dribbled down his chin unnoticed and his legs went suddenly weak. His chest felt like it was being crushed and one side of his face twisted slightly, comically.

Uh oh.

Blackness gathered at the edges of his vision as Jack rapidly keyed in the command lines.

He didn't know how long this would take. He had to hurry. He tied Arcee's life support unit into the console and fired up phase one.

_Hurry Jack._

He felt her more than he heard her. All these years he had carried her like this, he let himself believe that somewhere deep in his sub-conscious Arcee could speak to him. That he could hear her. It was a sorrow that all those times he had tried to talk to her, she never answered him. She slumbered, locked deep inside her spark. But sometimes, something, somewhere, reached out. He liked to think it was her.

"It's ok." He smiled, traces of that long lost boy in his battered face. He patted the battered lump of metal with one bloody hand.

"I'm ok." He said, coughing lightly and sprinkling blood on the console keys that blurred under his vision. The great machine before him rumbled now with more power at every button he pushed.

Phase two. Come on, come on. Good. Now three.

Finally a stream of light rippled up from the floor and all through the machine, centering in the glowing bio-tube. The hoses leading into it went rigid and with a deep gurgle the tube of synthetic energon began to empty into the matrix, flowing into the base fluid that filled the tube with a wave of neon green.

The ground was rattling Jack's teeth in his head, shaking him to the core as the matrix coalesced within the tube. His bypasses and reprogramming held. Ratchets careful and precise fine tuning work. Streaks of glowing light swirled around in the liquid with a glow so bright, Jack couldn't look at them. Something began to take shape.

And when the tube of synthetic energon finished emptying, the machine rumbled with such power it pitched the rapidly weakening Jack off his feet before the final sequence.

Timing was everything.

He had to do it now.

Jack was to weak to panic. Everything was growing dim and his hearing was cutting out. He stared in numb fascination at the section of walkway near his face where he lay. But then, his heart suddenly hammering in his ears, he remembered himself and with a sick cry he lurched back up, clawing weakly at the base of the computer console, shielding his eyes and feeling the air being sucked in from around him.

_Get up Jack. Get up!_

Phase four. The machine was pulsing now like a wild heartbeat. He had to do it now. Something incredible was building up and about to take place that was beyond the specs of the Bio-forge's tolerance. He could smell rich ozone in the air. Like lightning.

He wanted to watch but he was dying. He was all busted up and his body was giving it up. He was stroking out, crumbling.

He had waited eight years for this moment but now he wouldn't get to see. He wouldn't get to see _her._ All he could do was focus everything that was left in him to stand back up, _claw _his way back up, and finish what he started.

Rearing to his feet and falling back over the console, almost apologetically Jack twisted a final red dial and the glowing presence within Arcee's support system faded away as he fed it into the machine.

"Fuck yeah. I got this." Jack grinned in triumph.

And then he died.

His body went limp where he lay over the console, his head dropping and thumping lightly off the warm steel as his vision swam away in a swirl of glowing green liquid.

Warm steel. He remembered warm steel.

It felt like like a hug.

The machine rumbled on for a full minute more. Panels burst. Hoses bulged. The ceiling groaned and relays blew out. And then in a moment, all grew still as stone. Only the patter of liquid and the hiss of over pressure bleeding away could be heard. The tube at the top of the machine rippled with reflected blue-green light and waves of heat and energy from within.

For one pregnant moment nothing happened.

Then the Bio-Tube exploded.

**ooo**

Bio-Terror Prime

Viscous liquid and shattered glass rained down onto the steel walkways and flooring. Never before had a Bio-Terror matrix used the spark of a Transformer in place of the cortex-grafted mechanisms Knock-Out prepared from his human victims.

Ratchet had been uncertain what would happen.

Jack had had faith.

The massive steel cap of the tube rang like a bell as it landed on the floor. Slowly, something straightened up within the shattered tube.

Arcee stepped out from the tube in all her Bio-Terror glory. The liquid sloshed over the broken edges and trailed down the steps around her feet like a waterfall. She looked about for a moment and then came down the steps, trailing cables. She was a towering human female twelve feet in height and perfectly formed, naked and bare breasted with her sleek muscled body smooth and flawless. Yet every joint in her body from her ankles to her knuckles were sheathes of powerful bio-mech cables glowing a soft blue. It made her ethereal and surreal in the fading light and she hummed with inner power at the same time her chest rose and fell with her breathing.

She looked feral and stunning, lethal and exotic. Half human and half machine and superior to both.

A truly living machine.

Long, dark blue hair dripped wetly down her back to her waist, corded like fine fiber-optic dreadlocks, with one colored a rich pink. A haunting reminder of her former color scheme. She tilted her head back and ran her hands back up over her head, stretching reflexively and letting the liquid from the vat run off her skin.

Her nostrils flared as she lowered her chin and turned her startling eyes towards Jack where he lay slumped over the controls.

Those eyes gleamed a deep rich blue, nearly cobalt, harkening back to a time when a different Arcee used to stare at him in the same manner.

But she didn't recognize Jack. She was a blank slate. Moving on reflex.

Bio-Terror Arcee tilted her head as she stared at Jack Darby like a predator cat would.

Then the machine behind her sparkled with light. Slowly at first and softly building to brilliant. blue. Then white. Almost gentle compared to the violence of her birth. But it seemed so very much more alive.

Behind her the bundles of cable running to the base of her spine, neck and key points throughout her body suddenly burst with light as the final protocol engaged.

It wasn't over yet. So deadly was her new form that the tube hadn't been able to contain the exchanges of power and now Arcee's life-spark flowed out and down through the great machine and imbued her new body with her essence.

The proto-Arcee screamed, stiffening with shock as light burst from her eyes and mouth and the glowing corded joints of her body. The machine behind her hummed with power, the crescendo deafening, before with a blast of sparks it blew out panels all around it's construct. Knock-Out's mad creation succumbed to the damage, it's insulation failing as it began to burn but not before Arcee felt her spark racing through bright lines of light and settling into a form seething with power in a manner she had never felt before.

In the physical world, the cables all popped free from her body, releasing her from her paralysis and she grunted heavily as she pitched forward on to her hands and knees.

It was over.

Sprinklers engaged, along with smoke and steam and shorting electronics making up the chaos assailing her senses for the first time.

She didn't look up or even raise her head. She just knelt there a moment in the pooling fluids, breathing hard. For she knew that when she raised her head everything would be inexplicably changed.

Jack had succeeded and...she didn't want to see Jack dead. Not yet. Even though she knew he was. And for an eternity of thirty seconds she stayed there, vulnerable, filled with sorrow and all to human.

Her first human emotions were pain. The pain of loss. And being Arcee this was followed by anger.

She opened her eyes for a second time.

She still didn't look at Jack as she got to her feet, her Transformer's soul already adjusting smoothly to the environment of her new form.

She straightened her shoulders and flexed her naked frame and looked about the Decepticon laboratory, ingesting the files Ratchet had prepared for her in this moment hyper-rapidly and bringing herself up to speed in her new reality in just heartbeats.

She knew who she had been and what they had done for her and she knew who she was now and what she had to do.

She wasn't even thinking of Jack anymore.

She looked down at her fingers, curling and uncurling them into fists that could punch through steel like paper.

Then two first generation Bio-Terrors came stalking slowly into the laboratory, their bodies viscous and grotesque compared to hers. Their master had called. They had answered. Fresh from the battlefield they had come back and scattered the Vehicons to finally cut their way inside...and finding him dead they had come looking for whoever was responsible. It hardly mattered how they had been summoned.

When they saw Arcee they hissed at her. Male and Female, fanning out to stalk her on each side.

But it was a whole new ball game now.

Jack Darby had seen to that.

With the advent of the synthetic energon and the fact her Transformer's soul had been the key element in the Splicing process, Arcee knew she outclassed these Bio-Terrors immeasurably.

She was Bio-Terror _Prime_.

A terrible gleam burned in those cobalt eyes as she lowered her fists, her lips drawing into a tight line of fury.

Later there would be time to think of Jack...and everyone else.

Later she would remember who they were and what they fought for and mourn their passing as she had so many other friends and family. And she would think long on her dear Jack for years to come. She would raise a memorial to him unlike this world had ever seen. And she would lead the Autobots to lasting peace.

All that and more awaited Arcee, Bio-Terror Prime...just as soon as she was done destroying everything that was Decepticon on this planet.

_Go get em' baby._

"You better believe it." she replied.

The End.

* * *

_The story continues with the prequel: _

**The Legacy of Jack Darby : Arcee**

_And then a whole new continuation in:_

**_Bio-Terror Prime_**

_Thanks for reading!_


End file.
